If there's one thing we've learned in the four months we've being covering state workers, it's this: Dissent in the union ranks is alive and well.
Among the loudest factions right now is the newly formed Peace Officers of California.
POC is an unhappy subset of sworn game wardens, Justice Department agents, Cal Expo police and other state law enforcement officers (not including CHP and Corrections) who make up more than one-third of the 7,000-member California Statewide Law Enforcement Association.
The other CSLEA members include "non-sworn" workers such as milk inspectors, DMV drive test examiners, lab techs and dispatchers.
Despite their wide-ranging jobs, the association members' contracts are negotiated together since they're part of the same labor bargaining unit.
And that's the part that really, really ticks off some of the folks who carry a badge and a gun. "Bottom line, in our union 40 percent are cops, 60 percent aren't," said Jerry Karnow a state game warden with 20 years of law enforcement experience. "The problem is what it does to labor negotiations. We don't want non-sworn workers hanging on cops' shirttails."
CSLEA manager and Chief Counsel Kasey Clark says that's nonsense. Unions find their strength in numbers. CSLEA's members are all public safety employees to one degree or another. The Peace Officers of California movement is "a little bit insulting, if you look at the last contract," he says.
The state's recently expired three-year deal with CSLEA gave Fish & Game wardens, park rangers and special agents a cumulative 25 percent pay increase. "No one else in our bargaining unit got that," Clark said.
According to a state survey, a game warden's pay and benefits, for example, top out at $6,663 per month. That's about 7 percent above median of the highest packages earned by their counterparts in the federal government and in 10 other large or neighboring states.
But POC says that the 25 percent raise came from lobbying by rank-and-file members, not union efforts. And, they contend, wages are still too low to compete with those at agencies such as the highway patrol.
Look at the game wardens again. California's growing population has nearly quadrupled since 1947, when the state employed 194 game wardens. This year it has 192 – 80 fewer than in 1991.
That's proof that CSLEA hasn't done its job, Karnow said. "Somehow things got sideways. They're not advocating for us," he said.
The neutral Legislative Analyst's Office studied the issue and concluded that pay hikes alone won't pull in more applicants. Recruiting and hiring policies need improving, too.
Still, Karnow and about 1,400 of his colleagues have signed cards declaring their desire to split from CSLEA and form their own union. A state board will hear their case and render a decision, probably in this fall.
Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/blogs.
